When virtual reality becomes real enough that people feel as if they’re being transported to another world, Valia Online arrives.

A man running from his past joins the game to forget it all. Calling himself Jack Thorn, he chooses an undead race, Deathlord.

A mage by choice, and a swordsman by necessity, he soon finds out that he’ll need to use much more than magic and steel to survive; strategy, creativity, and carefully chosen words can often accomplish what simple attacks can’t.

As the game becomes too real and touches a part of him that he’d rather leave buried, he is faced with two questions:

The Story of People Getting Their Panties In A Twist

STYLE: A great LitRPG that is full of dark humor, mayhem, and poop slinging! The format of the story itself is easy to understand (BLUE WINDOWS) and I enjoy seeing how the MC progresses (BLUE WINDOWS). Oh, and there are several (A LOT) of blue windows. It really is a good thing trying to go that extra mile for the Reader to feel like they are in a game.

STORY: Now, this is where I have the most problems, even though I rated it so highly. Partly because I think I'm the only one who thinks this way. The MC is a douche bag (to put it lightly) and causes problems with others frequently. This means the MC has been used, taken advantage of, and stepped on. Even though he is some child of two of the most influential people on the planet, apparently. The MC is the main problem in the story, even going so far as to break the game's story! (MINOR SPOILER?) But that extends to this story itself. The only issues I see story wise revolves around the MC entirely. I will explain more later.

GRAMMAR: A+ my man, but not a 100. Still good though.

CHARACTER: Okay. So the MC is supposed to be the son of a power hungry mother and a conniving politician father. How could he stand to be dicking around? He fails at transactions, he fails at dealing with people, and he fails at being a person with a harsh past. He thinks on the subject but it doesn't really affect his judgement, just his actions. Being broken is a mental issue, one that takes a lot more effort than just breathing to deal with. Some MAJOR SPOILERS ahead.

[spoiler]

So he is a person who killed his parents and his favorite person. Okay. But why still have an open heart? Oh, it's a game, he can come out of his shell since he's looking for a wife. No, that's not how this works. He blames himself for the death of his family and loved ones, so why does he try to remain a normal person? He would have been resorting to methods that meant him never coming into contact with another person or outright changing into a different person. Normally, the person would have found fault in his current self so he would change. He was wanting to be like his aunt, but that was an accident and his parents kept telling him she was wrong. Now, as a normal person, they would ask themselves what was right. They would doubt themselves and believe the words of those who tried to steer him away in the first place. What I am saying is, he should have been more like his parents in the first place, calmly analyzing his situation and getting as much as he can without antagonizing anyone else. But he makes all these weird decisions that no normal, logical, or even crazy person would do. Instead, the author has him do things in a way that breaks the story. Trying to understand a character's thoughts is something I do regularly and I can't help but to think that the MC is nothing more than a wild card with a mentality that adjusts to fit the situation. Oh, we need conflict, have the MC cause some shit. Oh, we need to save her, make the MC experience a flashback. It is hard to get a read on someone when their actions are so unpredictable. If you wanted an unpredictable MC, then something a little more...maybe say...brain surgery would fit better.

[/spoiler]

Other than that, we have ourselves a riveting tail of people who hate each other too much to let someone else kill them! Watch as a young man sets out to find a girl beat a game!

Really fun Story

i'm not a native nor do i have any deeper knowledge about writing in general, so i'm not really able to say anything in depth about the writing style. there are some flashbacks here and there, but they're well placed. I'm actually unsure wherever there where any POVs other than the MC, suffice to say i don't remember any. if there were any, they weren't memorable enough :p

The story is very promising. its just the right amount of humor and seriousness for me. he has a clear and realistically achievable goal at the moment (survive and win the challenge). This goal isn't completely unrealistic as a lot of other VR-Novel games imagine (i.e. "only one person can win world-wide and he'll become a millionaire").

There are some minor errors over the chapters. sadly, my nexus 7 started to act up around chapter 5, so i gave up pointing them out. the author reacts really quick, so i encourage potential readers to mention them in each chapter. he's sure to fix them quickly :)

I'm removing one star from the character rating only because there are no real side-characters. The MC is pretty well done - he has character, history and his problems. but there is currently no other character in play thats even remotely as interesting as the MC (and i don't mean a romatic interest with that. i just can't imagine a healthy and interesting relationship with a person as damaged as our MC :p ). I think it would've to be a NPC, somebody the MC doesn't actually take completely serious because with his history, i can't imagine the MC treating another human fairly.

A well thought out and amazing story

For my personal opinion the author has done a great job with this story. It has a nice balance of plot, character development and pacing. The grammar is pretty good, a few mistakes here and there but nothing major. Plus the author reads comments posted by people usually reply to then and answers any questions asked.

Good Afternoon fellow Madmen let's listen to a story.

Style: The Author shows a neat balance between comedy and serious storytelling.

Story: The Game theme itself is nothing new but the take on its properties is. The inner Turmoil of the Character is also being depicted nicely and gradually unraveled.

Grammar: All in all good, a few typos and mistakes here and there but a quick cleanup of the already released chapters would fix that too.

Character: Although sometimes confusing, most Characters are well made even though the Author seems to love torturing us by leaving us in the Dark about a lot of the Backstory. (Which I'm certain will follow after some time but teasing us like that is not nice.)

All in all a very good read. Now bring me more of that written cocain slave! :P

Worth the read.

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